▪ EtymOnline: elixir , »mC13, from mLat elixir ‘philosopher’s stone’, believed by alchemists to transmute baser metals into gold and/or to cure diseases and prolong life, from Arabic al-iksīr ‘the philosopher’s stone’, probably from lGrk xerion ‘powder for drying wounds’, from xeros ‘dry’ [...]. Later in medical use for ‘a tincture with more than one base’. General sense of ‘strong tonic’ is 1590s; used for quack medicines from at least 1630s.«